


The Perfect Chance

by professorwillie



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Tutoring, almost reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 01:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11589804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professorwillie/pseuds/professorwillie
Summary: Ladybug confesses her love for Adrien to Chat Noir. Will this be the perfect way for Adrien to figure out who she is and confess his love in return?





	The Perfect Chance

Chat Noir always enjoyed the time after patrols. It was the best part of his day. He would sit with Ladybug and they would look at the stars or the city and just enjoy the peace and quiet. He loved that they never needed to talk if they didn’t want to. Tonight was different. Chat looked over at Ladybug sitting next to him. She had seemed off all night. He could tell something was bugging her. “Something wrong, my Lady?” he asked. 

“I need to talk to you about something,” Ladybug said. She looked down, wringing her hands together. Shame washed over her face. “I know you know I caused Lila to be an akuma victim, but you don’t know why. And honestly, I wouldn’t say anything except I need help getting past what I’m feeling and I can’t talk about to anyone else.”

“You can tell me anything, Buggaboo,” Chat responded. He looked at her and smiled. She truly trusted him and it was great. He didn’t like that she felt guilty, but he liked that she felt she could confide in him. 

“I was jealous she was talking to Adrien, you know the illusion she tried to throw off the Eifel Tower. He’s the boy at my school that I’ve had a crush on forever and I didn’t handle the situation well. I used my transformation to humiliate Lila in front of him. And even though she lied about me and, well, most of what she told people about herself was a lie, I could have handled it better. Tikki keeps telling me to control my emotions, but it’s difficult. I like him so much and he will never notice me without the mask. But I have no right to tell him who he can or can’t date or hang out with,” she paused, gathering her thoughts. “I need help either getting over my crush or dealing with the jealousy that comes with it.” She looked up at him.

Chat Noir could feel the heat rising to his face as she was confessing. She liked him? Not Chat him, but Adrien him? Is that why she didn’t flirt with him on patrols and kept telling him it was never going to happen? They went to school together? So many thoughts were going through his mind. He listened, but couldn’t respond or make his face do anything but look astonished.  
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Ladybug started to stand.

“No, no, no, no,” he said and pulled her back down. “Sorry, it just a lot of personal details and you’ve never shared so much of yourself with me. I’m just a little surprised is all.” He took a deep breath and thought about the best way to handle the situation. “First, I don’t think you should feel guilty over Lila. She lied to a lot of people and if you hadn’t called her out, someone would have gotten hurt. Second: I didn’t know you liked Adrien. It actually explains some things, like you almost giving up your miraculous for him. I guess I should ask you this: Do you want to get over your crush, or do you still want to be with him?”

She sat in silence for a moment, playing with the yo-yo in her hands. He willed her to wish to be with him. He wondered if staring at her and pushing that thought to her telepathically would work as a way to convince her. He concentrated very hard on that one thought, directing it towards her. Suddenly, she looked up at him. “I want to be with him,” she stated matter of factly.  
“So, let’s work on that.” Chat smiled at her warmly. 

The next day Adrien saw Marinette arrive at school. The plan was to ask Adrien for help in physics. She had said it was her worst subject and she needed some tutoring. She had told Chat that she couldn’t talk to Adrien properly, but he said that didn’t matter. She wasn’t asking for a date, she was asking for help with homework. She shouldn’t expect a date either, he warned her. She should just focus on raising her grade. 

Adrien was so excited he was almost shaking. He would finally know who Ladybug was! He was standing at his locker when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He jumped and turned around. “Whoa, Bud!” Nino said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“No, you didn’t! I mean, I was just thinking.” Adrien responded louder than he should have. He looked behind Nino, trying to see if anyone was coming towards them. He saw Marinette, but she turned away as soon as she saw Nino talking to him. She always acted so strange around him. 

“I need to ask you a favor. See, my grades in physics are dropping because I just don’t get what’s going on. Do you think you could help me get my grades up?” Nino looked at him, embarrassed to be asking for help. Adrien looked at him confused. Was Nino Ladybug? No, that was silly. He shook his head trying to get the thought out of his head. Nino took that as a negative.

“Hey, Dude, you don’t need to worry about it. I’ll find another tutor,” he responded with disappointment.

“No, sorry. I was thinking about something else. Of course I’ll tutor you. How about we meet after school today in the library,” Adrien suggested. They walked to class and joked around about Nino not passing because of Alya distracting him during class. After Adrien and Nino sat down, he noticed Marinette started to walk over to Adrien’s desk, but Alix beat her to it. 

“Adrien?” Alix asked. “I have a favor to ask. I failed that last physics test and I need some help. Would you mind tutoring me?” He looked at her in shock. Could Alix be Ladybug? She was athletic and she did wear her hair kind of in pigtails. If he let his eyes unfocus, he could kind of see a resemblance to Ladybug. 

“Sure,” he responded. “I’m actually tutoring Nino in the library after school. Do you want to come?” 

“Yeah, thanks. See you after school,” she popped a bubble from her gum as she walked away. He watched her leave, contemplating Alix being Ladybug.

Class started, but Adrien was distracted. He had wanted to know who Ladybug was, but this was not turning out like he thought. His mind started to wander and he imagined a tutoring session that turned into a candlelight dinner and a walk along the river in the moonlight with a few stolen kisses. He tried to imagine Alix’s face with the Ladybug mask on, but it didn’t quite work and he didn’t want kiss her either. He imagined Ladybug’s dark hair and blue eyes. Adrien let out a lovelorn sigh. Nino poked him.

“Dude, did you just sigh?” he whispered. 

“Shut-up! I did not! And talking in class is why you’re failing,” he responded defensively. 

“Whatever, Loverboy.” Nino was not having it. Adrien rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the lesson. 

After lunch, Juleka asked for help with physics. Adrien was shocked. He couldn’t believe all the people that had failed the physics test. So far, he was going to tutor five people after school. He knew he could eliminate Kim and Nino from the Ladybug list. His kawmi didn’t change his gender, so he didn’t think the ladybug kwami would do that either, although, he couldn’t be 100% certain. 

He turned his attention to Juleka, Alya, and Alix. He was pretty sure Alya was into Nino and was only coming to the tutoring session to hang out. Juleka and Alix were a different story. Juleka fit the dark hair requirement for Ladybug, but her eyes were a different color. Her movements were also different from Ladybug. There was also the fact that she was dating Rose. They were inseparable and he could tell that Juleka really liked her. He knew you could like more than one person at once, but the way they looked at each other, he didn’t know if they knew anyone else was ever in the room. The only person left was Alix. He watched her pop another bubble from her gum. Alix and Ladybug had such different personalities. He was different at Chat, but he wasn’t that different. But she did have blue eyes. And she did wear pigtails, although one usually came down by mid-morning. Her hair was a different color, but then again, his eyes were different when he transformed. Alix was a good possibility to be Ladybug.

Adrien was putting away his things in his locker after school when Marinette walked up to him. She looked nervous, but she always did. “Hi, Marinette,” he said smiling at her.  
She turned bright red and looked down at her hands. “My grade in physics is not great and I know it’s one of your best subjects. I was wondering if you might be able to tutor me?” She breathed in. She has said it so fast, he almost hadn’t understood what she was saying. 

Adrien looked at her and smiled. “Of course, Marinette! I’m actually getting a group together in the library in about 10 minutes. Want to join us?”

Marinette smiled. “I’ll be there!” She stood there for a moment staring at him. Adrien smiled, patted her on the shoulder, and walked towards the library.

10 minutes later, the study group was assembled. Marinette had gone to the bakery and grabbed some snacks to share. They were all munching on croissants when Adrien started the session. “Alright everyone, pull out your tests and let’s see if you all got the same answers wrong so we know where to start.” It turns out, most people had missed the same questions covering one concept. Adrien carefully went over the concept again, explaining how to work the problem and answering questions as he went along. After an hour, most everyone had the idea down. Marinette, on the other hand, had missed more on the test. 

“I’m still not sure about this part,” she said to Adrien as she pointed at a test question. Adrien leaned over her shoulder to see what test question she was talking about. He put his hand on her other shoulder as he put his face close to hers to see better. He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. She smelled like the bakery. He could smell the sugar and cinnamon and vanilla in her hair. She turned her head to look at him. “Adrien?” His eyes popped open. 

“Right, the question. Which one was it again?” he asked turning slightly pink from embarrassment. She continued to point at the question with a small smile on her face. He couldn’t believe he had just been caught sniffing Marinette. He sat down in the chair next to her and started to explain how she should have worked on the problem to get the correct answer. He didn’t realize his hand was on top of hers until she moved it away. Marinette blushed at looked hard at her test. “Sorry,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to… I mean, I just…” he started.

“It’s fine, Adrien. Thanks for helping me with this. I think I’m going to head home now. The library is closing and I want to get home to finish up a design I’m working on,” she said as she started to gather up her things. He looked around and noticed everyone else was already gone. He wondered how long they had been alone. He looked at the time and realized Ladybug and Chat Noir were supposed to meet soon for patrol. Marinette was smart and beautiful. It was too bad she wasn’t Ladybug, he thought. He knew who she was and he was going to tell her as soon as he saw her.

20 minutes later he was at their usually meeting place for patrol. He didn’t know what he was going to say when she came to patrol. Should he tell her he knew who she was? He was nervous and sweating. “Hello, Chaton,” Ladybug said from behind him. “I took your advice and asked Adrien for tutoring.”

He turned slowly, trying to look happy to see her instead of edgy. “How did it go?” he asked. He didn’t know what answer to expect. Questions were swimming around in his head. Should he tell her he was Adrien now? Or wait? Or should he tell her he knew who she was? How were his palms sweating under his suit? Was that even possible?

“It went well. You were right. If I kept telling myself it wasn’t a date, it was easier to talk to him. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time alone with him. Everyone in class failed the test, too and he ended up tutoring half of us. Maybe next time, I’ll ask him to do something fun.” She smiled at him. He melted. He never did that in class with her. Why was he doing it now?

“I have to tell you something, Alix.” he said. He watched her. She looked up at him, her face was confused. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?” she looked him and blinked. 

“I have to tell you something, Alix,” he repeated. She looked at him in disbelief. Then she burst out laughing. This was not the reaction he had been expecting. He could have taken angry, he hoped for love, but hysterical laughter? He didn’t know what to do or say, so he just started explaining. “Ladybug, I know you didn’t want us to reveal our identities, but it was too tempting not to know when you gave me so many personal details. I had to know who you were. Please don’t be mad,” he pleaded with her.

By this time, Ladybug was laughing so hard, she had fallen to the ground crying. “You think I’m Alix?” she cried, wiping away tears. “You think I’m Alix?” 

“Yes. Why are you laughing? You are Alix! The blue eyes, the pigtails. She’s small, you’re small. She’s athletic, you’re athletic. It makes sense! Am I wrong?” Chat didn’t know what was happening. 

Ladybug had stopped laughing hysterically and had started giggling. “Chat. Have you forgotten that Alix was akumatized about 6 months ago? Remember, there were 2 of me? How could you forget this?”

“So, you’re telling me you’re not Alix,” he paused and shook his head. “And yes, now I vaguely remember that.” he confessed reluctantly. How could he have forgotten Alix had been Timebreaker? Chat turned red with embarrassment. 

“I am not Alix.” she said, wiping the tears from her face. “And why are you trying to figure out who I am? You know we can’t know.” She shook her head and looked at him in wonder.  
“I want to know. I have to know.” Chat confessed as he took her hands in his and gazed into her eyes in a way he hoped would convey how much he loved her.

“Well, you can’t. Not right now. Stop looking for me, Kitty. I promise, one day, you’ll know.” She smiled up at him and then quickly changed the subject. “I’ll race you to Notre Dame!” she called to him as she wrapped her yo-yo around a chimney and took off into the night. 

A promise was more than she had ever offered before. He couldn’t help but feel one day couldn’t come soon enough. Chat smiled to himself and chased after her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm still writing and practicing, so any criticism you can offer is greatly appreciated!


End file.
